Then again, I work for IBM, where everyone knows what a backslash is.

But my mother is computer illiterate, yet manages to use the internet and send email. She even managed to burn music CDs (How the hell?). But I’ve never heard her say “backslash”. Although she did type “underscore” into a URL that I was trying to give her over the phone. Ahem.

Oh, she lives in Cyprus now, and is convinced that her poor reception for her wireless internet connection is because she is on the top of a remote hill. Doesn’t matter how many times I explain the difference between wireless internet and mobile phones, she just doesn’t get it.

My dad is mostly fairly competent when it comes to using computers and emails and the internet. However, he always types emails in CAPITALS and he uses the terms “email”, “internet” and “website” completely interchangeably. So he visits emails on the website, and sends internets via the email.

*Runs for his life*

He he.

Have you been sending Jammer nasty emails?

No, I didn’t put any money in the fund so don’t have the right to get mean and send the boys round.
Just as well, I’m in England and it’ll be a bloody long walk for them.

The sad thing is that the guy announcing it is a definite computer nerd. What were you thinking, man? This was stupid in 1996, by now it’s inexcusable.

Obviously, they were successful to a degree because people say “backslash” although they really mean “slash.” Is there any thing less evil in the world?

And I can relate to people who say they have issues with older relatives! My father is very prone to mixing up terms to the point where you really can’tunderstand what he trying to say! (One little thing that irks me is when he says “internet” instead of “the internet”).

I love that guy.

“Ten movies streaming across that, that Internet, and what happens to your own personal Internet? I just the other day got… an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday, I got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially.

[…] They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something you just dump something on. It’s not a big truck. It’s a series of tubes. And if you don’t understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it’s going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material”

And this guy was IN CHARGE of regulating it? Lets get Hitler to head up a racial awareness campaign shall we?

“Now type backslash, backslash - that’s the one next to the ‘Z’…”

Before you all whinge - I’m in the UK - it IS there!

But obviously, if in doubt, a normal slash is “the one leaning forwards”, and the blackslash is “the one leaning backwards”.

As for ‘Internet’ and ‘The internet’, the solution is simple: Put on a Yorkshire accent and call it ‘t’internet’. It works like a charm, although I can to then tell people that t’internet is not made up exclusivelt of tin…

Oh well…